Students must be able to create meaning from career and technical education texts. Reading and comprehension of texts are skills that develop through practice with a variety of texts, including those in career and technical education. A quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group design was used to determine the effect of implementing content area reading strategies (CARS) on comprehension and reading behaviors of a purposively selected sample (n = 95) of secondary agricultural science students. Instruction with CARS was compared to the teacher's normal instructional routine. Pretest score, grade level, grade point average, gender, ethnicity, and standardized reading level predicted 65% of variance in agriculture posttest scores. Students in the treatment group generally improved their reading behaviors, while students in the comparison group regressed. Students in the treatment group read significantly more hours per week for school and had increased the hours reading for pleasure significantly more than the comparison group. (Contains 6 tables, 2 figures, and 2 footnotes.)